06Jun2017

The Ultimate 28-Day Financial Fitness Routine: Day 6

Day 6 ~

Journal your journey.

Athletes keep journals to help keep themselves motivated. They write down their goals, their challenges, their failures, and their inspiration. It keeps them focused and allows them to reflect on their past to achieve progress in the future.

Whether you keep your journal digitally or in an old-fashioned paper journal, let it become your book of motivation. It should be one of the last things you see before going to bed, and one of the first things you grab for in the morning. Check it before you check your inbox or Facebook.

Divide your journal into these sections:

Goals – Write down a larger money goal you’ve set for yourself, like the one you wrote in your WHY, or a daily goal such as — “I will not be tempted to check out the Nordstrom shoe sale, or “I will spend $10 less than I budgeted for today.” These goals are about refreshing your purpose each day.

Expenses – Different than budget tracking, this is a way to set your money intentions for the day and realize when and where you stray. Unless we give in to an impulse or an emergency comes up, most of us have a pretty good idea of where we’ll be going and what we intend to spend money on when we begin our day. If you end up spending on an unplanned item, note it next to your intentions.

Venturing outside of set intentions is when you run into impulse spending, and a behavior that has the potential to be budget-busting. With the expense notes in your journal and what you record in your tracking tool, you’ll start seeing which items are impulse, what costs you more than planned, and where you can find savings. When you become conscious of what you spend, it’s easy to come up with patterns and a plan of action for saving.

Gratitude – Here you’ll write a gratitude statement for anything money related, big or small. No matter where you are financially, finding something to be grateful for sets positive energy around what you are hoping to accomplish. We suggest you write this at the end of each day, before heading to bed. It’s a great way to connect with some positive energy before you go to sleep.

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